Could "changing the world" be a contender the most trite, overused expression of 2013? Recent grads seem to have adopted it en masse as their personal tagline. It's a nice sentiment, but it hard not to roll your eyes when every 23 year old applies it to his mobile phone app with no users that he threw together in a couple weeks.
I'd suggest actually changing the world first, and then shouting it from the rooftops. It will be (slightly) less annoying that way.
You should join my startup as chief growth hacker. We'll pay you less than you're currently making, but you'll change the way people are changing the world.
Worse, by working on a trivial startup that will eventually fail, they'll usually be changing the world for the worse, as the opportunity cost could be going into medical research, or fundamental science, or creating other great works that move society forward.
I completely agree with you. I'm in my lower 20s and you have no idea how annoying that phrase is to me. I hear it way too much and used with reckless abandon that it's lost all meaning to me.
I'd suggest actually changing the world first, and then shouting it from the rooftops. It will be (slightly) less annoying that way.
Besides, I'm not even sure it's a healthy sentiment for most people (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130708103509.ht...). If your focus is as broad as "changing the world," you're probably setting yourself up to feel like a failure.